Browse Forums Building A New House Re: ALKIRA Homes 42Jul 09, 2014 2:31 pm We are looking at Alkira after a woeful tender with AllCastle – they weren’t very flexible and any upgrade we wanted would make the price go through the roof so it was hard to get pricing without forking out another $5k Any feedback about Alkira? We love the Elyse 15 or The Sienna.... Would love to hear! Re: ALKIRA Homes 43Jul 09, 2014 3:16 pm If you've searched or Alkira, you've probably already the build-thread I made? I've been pretty happy with them thus-far, and we're up to having tiles laid & kitchens installed. A few hiccups which I think would be easier to resolve with a smaller custom builder, but nothing terrible overall yet. However, because the tradies they've used haven't made a lot of mistakes yet, I have no way to properly gauge how Alkira deals with mistakes; we noticed late last week that 3 of our 4 big sliders had frames installed in a wonky fashion, and this is the first thing we've had to ask them to fix so it'll be interesting to see how they cope with that. Oh - one thought - get as much into the tender as you can, and make sure everything is documented. We're getting an OdourVac system installed for example, and they hadn't dealt with it before & I don't think the estimator wanted to spend the time looking at the install instructions (ie. leaving it up to the actual installer who didn't necessarily communicate 100% what needed to be ordered), so they didn't end up quite installing it properly. The way they've done it doesn't have any down-sides for us, but it's cost them more when it shouldn't have had to. To be honest, if we hadn't specified in the tender that we wanted the OdourVac systems installed, it's possible they might have said "no" at estimating-time when they'd said "yes" at sales-time. That's a guess, but either way I still think it's best to get as much in the tender as you can (even if they only include a provisional cost because they can't get a full price at that time). Re: ALKIRA Homes 44Jul 09, 2014 5:28 pm I've also gone with Alkira and am building the Sienna just submitted to council ... Re: ALKIRA Homes 45Jul 22, 2014 5:46 pm noticed a new alkira build in the north ryde area, anyone on here? would they like to share their experiences thus far? Re: ALKIRA Homes 48Jul 23, 2014 7:54 am A heap of projects in North Ryde lately. According to the neighbours, when frames were going up our guys were hopping between 3 Alkira sites in the area. If you guys are seeing this new site, must be on the city side of Lane Cove Rd? Re: ALKIRA Homes 49Jul 24, 2014 10:07 pm I'm avoiding naming the street but reading Forg's comment .. yes it is on the city side of Lane Cove Rd. Alkira had marked the site, prepping for slab ... Re: ALKIRA Homes 50Jul 31, 2014 11:13 pm I gather there are no takers to owning up that it is theirs? Hope to hear of their experiences ... even though they went with Alkira would have like to find out what they have selected .... Anyone?? .... Re: ALKIRA Homes 51Aug 01, 2014 8:11 am Ours will probably start early next month, though we have gone with an Elyse 15. At this stage I'm waiting for the final variations costings from our Internal meeting as we changed a bunch of things and also the final price for our kitchen upgrades. I think we started the tender process in January and went through a bunch of different people before getting to this point. Everyone is generally great to deal with, though as many people have mentioned before at times you need to be patient while waiting for costings and other material to get back to you. Also you need to be extra careful of the plan and tender to ensure everything you want is actually listed on there and correct. Though in saying that Alkira have never said no to anything we requested. I hope it's smooth sailing once the build starts ; ) Re: ALKIRA Homes 52Aug 01, 2014 12:56 pm damianb7 Also you need to be extra careful of the plan On this point ... have you moved much around? Our plan was redrawn quite a lot, we've got the guest+study+powder of one of the Elyse 15 designs plugged into the Olivia design, with the WIP removed and the laundry shuffled behind the garage ... and upstairs is pretty much custom except for the external walls & staircase. However they left the box-sections for the aircon ducting in the same place as it was before we redesigned everything; and the aircon guys weren't able to work with those standard locations so we've got some whacky boxed-off corners of rooms which we hadn't planned on. Plus the single-door-width hall cupboard now has an aircon duct behind it, and hence is now only about 2' deep. I imagine that if we'd worked with the aircon guys, we probably could've come up with better locations for those boxed-sections which worked better with the design of the house; but because it had to be done on-the-spot after everything else was complete, we had a lot less choice. I mean it's not the end of the world (and the better half is happier with the WIR without the pointless protrusion in the middle of it) ... it just would've "felt" better if we'd been able to plan it. At least the placing of all the vents sounds like they're a lot more sensible than the placing of vents for other builds I've read-about on this forum ... our boxed-sections might be a bit unexpected because the aircon has been done perfectly, which I'd much prefer to having had badly done aircon with vents placed for the aircon guys' convenience alone. Re: ALKIRA Homes 53Aug 01, 2014 7:24 pm Quote: On this point ... have you moved much around? To be honest not much. Little changes here and there, though nothing drastic like yourself. We went with the Elyse 15 as we were quite happy with it from the get go. That's interesting regarding the air-con though, hopefully seeing we didn't change much everything is smooth sailing for us, though I'll have to keep an eye on it. Can't wait to approve our Kitchen and final variation figures, so we can sign the final contract.. counting down the days, sometimes the estimators seem to take an age to get back! Re: ALKIRA Homes 54Aug 02, 2014 5:58 pm We are building Elyse 15 as well, we have been quite patiently waiting - we hope that we can have the contract signed before tender expired-which is only 8 weeks away!!! Our demolition quote were gotten in April, Democorp told me the fees are up since July, as government tip charges increased. Re: ALKIRA Homes 55Aug 02, 2014 9:27 pm We didn't sign our contract until about 2 months after the tender expired ... all delays were nothing to do with us, and I said so at the contract-signing meeting, so it went ahead. Despite there having been two price-rises since the tender. Re: ALKIRA Homes 56Aug 03, 2014 6:21 pm we're in the same situation .. cost for demo will increase as we're going with democorp as well... oh well life goes on, hoping to start demo and build soon and finally see some real progress .. went to the new one at North Ryde today ... slab is down so good indicator as to how things move Re: ALKIRA Homes 57Aug 03, 2014 8:50 pm We were also going to get the increase fee with Democorp, so I just got it done earlier to avoid it.. even though the block is empty now, it gave us time to get the pool started before the construction. I must say Democorp were awesome to deal with. Sure they found additional asbestos, but we expected that. All 3 surrounding neighbors were raving about how professional they were, so can't complain at all. Re: ALKIRA Homes 58Aug 03, 2014 10:56 pm thanks damianb7 ... that's reassuring that demolition was good ... Re: ALKIRA Homes 59Aug 04, 2014 12:25 pm Hi Forg, Thanks for your information about tender expiring . Thanks Damianb7, happy to hear democorp doing things properly Re: ALKIRA Homes 60Aug 04, 2014 11:07 pm Had our first setback with Alkira.. we were aiming to get basins, mixers and other things from Reece, rather than the standard inclusions provided and they weren't able to source them. As it's the last thing left on our list, going to have to find something they can source.. they were good in coming back with alternate options, just need to figure out what to pick! Also our Kitchen/Laundry/Bathroom/Electrical upgrades were a lot higher than our provisional allowances, but that's probably our fault Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74701 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 105533 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! 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